This might not be new, but I don't remember seeing CNet do anything like this before. This report about Microsoft is going to span four parts, with one new article per day, but you can read the whole series as a pdf right now, provided you go through a free registration.

You get the content in advance, and a convenient packaged format you can store and print. Interesting trade-off between having more page views (meaning more advertising inventory) and building a bigger user database. There are hyperlinks in the PDF, but no ads (a sponsorship by Oracle or SUN would have been fun).

The first report in this format is dated from Sept. 17 2001, but I don't know when this pdf "preview" alternative was introduced.